


Fences

by 5ofSpades



Series: The Lordly One and the Fenced-In [1]
Category: Norse Mythology, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Community: norsekink, Fantastic Racism, Intersex, Jotunn | Frost Giant, M/M, Mpreg, Other, Pseudo-Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 18:03:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/903233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5ofSpades/pseuds/5ofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Norsekink Prompt:<br/>Thor was told of Loki's true heritage. Then, on a visit to the Vanir Freyr, he discovers by chance the imprisoned and pregnant jötunn Gerðr hidden within Freyr's halls. Hermaphrodite jötunn.</p><p>Warnings: Intersex-Jötunn, non-con (but not with Loki), mpreg (but of course Loki), pseudo-incest, gods being creepers, Norse Deities’ A+ Parenting, and a fairy tale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fences

 

 

 

********************************************************

**_Hide and Seek:_ **

Thor, Prince of Asgard, Thunderder, Odinson, Wielder of mighty Mjölnir, Avenger, Protector of Midgard, searched for his Brother.

 

After his removal from Midgard, Loki Lie-Smith slithered through rules lawyering from the all-too-brief though harsh grips of Asgardian justice, and imposed upon himself a self-exile most complete from the lands that he used to call home. And Thor had looked for his recently found and just as quickly lost Brother ever since. Why had his Brother of the heart though not of the blood not stayed? Did he once again drop into the abyss?

 

Frigga signed, Heimdallr shook his head, the Warriors and Sif tried to distract their friend and Prince, Fenrir and Jörmungandr snapped at him, Hel had been unreachable ever since she was sent to that faraway dead and ashen realm, and sweet-tempered Sleipnir took one look at his uncle across the high fences of the royal pastures, turned, and trotted away.

 

Odin, weary of the Prince’s despondent moods, sent his remaining son on a diplomatic visit to Álfheimr, the home of fair Vanr Lord Freyr, Brother of the beautiful goddess Freyja, and esteemed ally of Asgard.

 

********************************************************

 

**_Trophy:_ **

Freyr was honoured by the presence of his Prince, and prepared a feast in Thor’s name. They drank to Odin’s wisdom, Thor’s bravery, the glory of Asgard and Álfheimr, and past deeds of valour. Soaked up in mead and good company, Thor felt some of his merrier self temporarily returned to him.

 

As Freyr told the stories behind each of the hunting trophies in his halls, Thor noticed the grandest one: a pair of great curving horns, shaped like a giant ram’s, but so much bigger, sturdier, and deep blue in colour.

 

Noticing what had caught Thor’s eyes, Freyr, the ever obliging host, told his guest of its story.

 

********************************************************

 

**_Beli the Giant and Gerðr the Fair:_ **

On the edge of Freyr’s estates, many trees were planted to foster the hunting grove known as Barrey. And it was these woods that prospered and grew wild under Freyr’s blessings, until Barrey stretched along the edges between Asgard, Álfheimr, and Jötunheimr.

 

After the Æsir-Jötnar war, guards and rangers were posted to Barrey, to catch dishonourable frost giant spies, or so was the official intent. But in practice, most giants that fell to the guards’ spears and rangers’ arrows were farmers, hunters, and foragers. Upon losing the Casket of Ancient Winters, Jötunheimr waned and dwindled, forcing the odd enterprising Jötnar into strange woods for survival.

 

The Vanr Lord Freyr sometimes joined his men in warding off these giants. Even as farmers and hunters and foragers, the sons of Jötunheimr were fierce and cold, beings shaped by permafrost and jagged ice. Freyr had with him a magical sword, that when wielded by the wise, would fight Jötnar by itself. Many a giants’ necks were cleaved from their shoulders by this fiery blade.

 

The border patrols were also valiant men, that even without their Lord, they were able to successfully hunt down many a trespassers, so that the borders of Barrey would now and then see blue heads stuck upon wooden spikes, their horns shorn off to decorate Æsir and Vanir halls alike.

 

The Jötunn Lord Gymir, for giants though they were, the race still held some semblance of civilization, was a proud creature. To his reckoning, the branches of Barrey that grew into Jötunheimr were his land. And his subjects’ disgraced heads taunted him so. Yet with the peace accord, he was confined to seethe within his icy halls. But Beli son of Gymir was young and of less frozen blood, and he oft snuck into Barrey. He swung his great club into the skulls of any Æsir or Vanir he came upon, be they guards, rangers, farmers, or hunters, old or young, women or men.

 

Freyr was alarmed by tales of a brutal giant slaying his subjects and allies, and took it upon himself to patrol the woods daily with his faithful servant Skírnir.

 

One day, while hunting for smaller games to fatten the good rangers’ provisions, Freyr came upon a young maiden who was picking mushrooms in the woods. He bade her to hurry home, for she wandered too close to Jötunheimr, and monsters lurked there. She bowed her head and hurried away, but not before the Lord saw a flash of ivory white arms, and a few dark ringlets spilling forth from under her sky blue shawl.

 

The world was vast, but many swore it was also a small place, for Freyr chanced upon the same maiden once or twice each moon. She was young, unwed, and fair of face, and the Lord soon found himself sparing time to share laughter with her. He shared with her tales and games, while she bestowed upon him garlands of wildflowers and expert needlework. During these meetings Freyr’s heavy duties no longer weighed down his mind, and the servant Skírnir was sent away for more private times.

 

So it was upon one such meeting, that Freyr fell into the maiden’s white shining arms, mapped all the freckles on her cream smooth skin, and gasped her name, Gerth, past breathless lips.

 

But when he woke, he was alone in the groove, and his magical sword whisked away.

 

His lady love’s betrayal landed a blow harder than any giant’s weighty club upon Freyr’s heart. For days he locked himself in his halls, neither drank nor slept. Skírnir looked upon his master with a heavy heart, and set out to find the black-hearted wench. What he found shook him with rage, and again confirmed that the Jötnar were a most vile and dishonourable race.

 

Many talked of the might of Beli, but few not of Jötunn-birth knew his elder sibling Gerðr the Fair.

 

Gerðr had no strength of arms. Gerðr was too soft of heart. Gerðr was neither outspoken nor brave. But he loved his little Brother as he would fresh winter snow, and feared that Freyr’s sword would find Beli’s neck. So with a shimmer of ice Gerðr hid fine curling horns and half of his sex, and walked into Barrey as light skinned and dark-eyed Gerth.

 

Gerðr’s trick filled Freyr with shame, having lost his sword and honour, and failed to see the monster under comely skin.

 

Quick and loyal Skírnir came up with a plan, to lure out Beli and avenge his Lord. He had men spread boasts that they’ve captured a frost giant runt, and how laughable that it referred to itself as something Fair.

 

Beli rushed into the Vanir camp bellowing with rage, only to have the bright Freyr and his men lying in wait. A thousand arrows pierced his icy flesh, and with a hart’s antler Freyr skewered the giant’s blue frozen heart.

                                

The sword was sadly forever lost, and a lesson learnt, but look these are Beli’s great ram horns cleaved from its head.

 

“What of Gerðr the Fair, the little Jötunn witch?” Thor asked his host.

 

“Oh rest assured, that little thief had also met a most deserving fate.”

 

********************************************************

 

**_Gambanteinn and the Room with No Windows:_ **

In the first few days Gerðr cried in his iron cage. How foolish was Gerðr for thinking that a wretch like him could have saved brave reckless Beli, poor beloved Beli. He should have killed that Vanr dog while he slept.

 

In the next few decades Gerðr screamed in his heavy bonds. Foul Skírnir set upon him with the cursed staff Gambanteinn, questioning the whereabouts of his master’s magic sword. But alas, Gerðr had sold it to a merchant caravan from Svartálfaheimr. Skírnir tried to track it down, but the Norns obscured his keen eyes and redirected his trails. The sword was not to be drawn again until the end of all ends, in the hands of the most powerful son of Múspellsheimr1.

 

After Skírnir had vented all of his rage, Gerðr found himself waking on a feathered bed.

 

In the next few centuries Gerðr shivered and moaned in his golden shackles. His only visitors were Skírnir and Freyr. The former cleaned his chambers and brought him food. The latter climbed upon his bed, traced the lines and ridges on his skin, and in this room with no windows, lit only by a small fireplace, called him Gerðr the Fair.

 

********************************************************

 

**_Gerðr the Fenced-In part 1:_ **

Belly full of food and mead, and head full of thoughts of close-knit Brothers, Thor walked down the halls to his guest quarters.

 

Trophy horns. He recalled similar trophies in the halls of his father. Once he finished his visit here, he would return at once and take them all down to be dashed to pieces. Maybe then his Brother would come home. Strange how a pair of Jötnar were better kin to each other than Princes of Asgard. Even now they must be together in wherever it was that dead frost giants went in their afterlives.

 

Even deep in thought, Thor was one of the best warriors of Asgard, and a flickering shimmer was caught in the corner of his eyes. While he had not the gift of magic himself, Thor was sensitive to magic worked in his presence, trained by years of practice from his prankster Brother. Something else prowled these halls. Following the faint traces and his own instinct, with Mjölnir’s handle firmly in his grip, Thor found himself walking down a shaded hallway, more disused and cooler than the rest of the hold.

 

At the end of the hallway was a thick iron door. Thor made himself quiet and tried the handle. Finding it unlocked, he nudged the door slightly ajar to a dimly lit room with no windows.

 

When his eyes adjusted, he saw a figure with a full pregnant belly inclined on a fine poster bed, on its left ankle circled a leather shackle fixed to a short golden chain.

 

The figure’s ears pricked up, and it slowly turned around. Thor stared dumbly at a pair of small fine ram-like horns, blue ridged skin, and glowing red eyes. In his ears echoed his host’s comment about a most deserving fate.

 

********************************************************

 

**_Spider:_ **

When his belly first swelled, Gerðr had tried to beat it with his own fists, dash it against the corners of tables and cabinets, refused food.

 

But both the Jötnar and Vanir were hardy folks. Some would even call them gods in their own right. Soon the parasite was noticed by Freyr, who had Gerðr’s hands bound, chains shortened, and all sharp corners filed down or removed from the room altogether. Skírnir even devised a way to force liquid food down his master’s most beloved trophy’s throat.

 

When the Vanr’s bastard grew large enough to have a heartbeat, Gerðr remembered his dam, and how he had laid his ear upon a swollen belly, and listened to the thud, thud, thud of Beli’s heart.

 

And even before the child started to kick back in response to his songs and caressing hands, Gerðr the soft-hearted already started to fear for the child, instead fear of it.

 

That was when a green spider crawled out of the fireplace, and asked him if he wanted to make a deal. The half-breed whelp’s safety for everything Gerðr knew of the frost giants. Not of their scattered armies or broken battlements, but of their secret stories and hidden songs.

 

********************************************************

 

**_Evening Strolls:_ **

Returning from a brief post-dinner walk in his host’s fine garden during the evenings, Thor saw Freyr accompanied by a young maiden, a tall, pregnant maiden, whose features were familiar, but skin colour now cream and freckled instead of blue and swirly even in the dim light.

 

Thor called out a greeting to them, wondering why Freyr would let out his hidden prisoner at such a late time. “Hail my Lord, who is this lovely maiden in your company tonight?”

 

“A fine evening to you too good Prince! Just taking my dear pet for a walk. All the better for digestion,” Freyr bowed to Thor with flourish and winked at the Thunderer as he righted himself. The disguised Jötunn besides him trembled lightly.

 

“I, I will leave you two be then.” Not fully comfortable (Jötnar as pets? The only ones he knew were dead and rotting, stuffed and mounted, or a dear, estranged Brother), Thor headed hastily for his rooms.

 

The Thunderer of many ages before would have loudly accused his host of consorting with beasts, but his Brother, while many things, was not a beast. The Thunderer of a few ages ago would have smashed the Jötunn’s chains and accused his host of cruelty, but the absence of his Brother’s counsels and the waning of his father’s strength had forced him to heed the bindings of politics. Njörðr’s son’s house was high and powerful, the Vanir important allies of Asgard. A Jötunn thief was a monster lesser than even a briefly lived Midgardian mortal. As Thor he would have pressed Freyr, but as Crown Prince he could not have easily questioned a Vanr Lord on how to treat his spoils of the hunt. And the crown, not even yet on the Prince’s head, again made its shackling weight known to him.

 

The morning after Thor’s evening stroll found Skírnir stumbling and half drugged with magic, swearing to his master that it was upon his Lord’s request that he opened all the locks.

 

********************************************************

 

**_Hunt:_ **

 

Freyr called a hunt for properties stolen, and apologized to his guest that he could no longer fulfil his duties as a host.

 

Thor thanked the Vanr Lord, and stated that while he wished to be of more help, his father’s court and other duties also beckoned. But as the Vanir men and their hounds and hawks lost themselves in their frantic searches, Thor doubled back to do a little hunting of his own.

 

********************************************************

 

**_Of Monsters (Dam, Whelp, Mage, Brother):_ **

When Thor finally tracked down the Jötnar pair, one slender and tall with sharp dagger-like horns, the other round and near labour, decorated with small coiled horns, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do.

 

“I am Járnsaxa, son of Nál. A Jötunn witch on a journey of self-reflections. Why does a Prince of Asgard follow two hapless Jötnar runts so deeply into the woods? Does he seek his pound of flesh for felling so quickly to simple illusions in Freyr’s garden? Or is he a man of worse perversions?” the tall one stood his ground. Behind him, Freyr’s escaped prisoner shivered and shook, even if the Jötnar were said to never feel cold.

 

In truth, Thor did not know why he sought the escapees. Was it to help his host recover what had been lost from his halls? Was it for the spark of magic, of tricks and subterfuge that he sensed? Was it for the chance to speak with the people from whom his Brother hailed?

 

The words that stumbled past his lips were tactless in hindsight. “I did not know there were so many Jötnar who are so small.”

 

The taller of the two small giants threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, but we Jötnar come in many shapes and forms, some of which aren’t even bipedal. You should know, Prince, for are we not monsters in all your tales?”

 

The other one simply hugged his stomach tighter. “I beg you Thunderer, please let us go or end it all here. Anything but to drag us back to His halls. While He might willingly hide and house the get of his seeds, I would sooner die, than birth my child amongst a people who would enslave and abandon children to chains and void and dead lands because of their birth-given forms.”

 

Thor thought of his niece and nephews, affectionate toward him each in their own unique ways, back when their father/mother was still with them, and let the two Jötnar go.

 

********************************************************

 

**_Monster Genetics:_ **

“Why aid me and ask for so little in return?” Gerðr had once asked the Spider.

 

“Your wish to see your child well is more than enough for me,” said the Spider. “And I have currently set out to learn about the Jötnar, something sadly omitted from my vast educations. Besides, I am so very bored, and both you and that Vanr are so very amusing. There is also some curiosity on what hides within your stomach. Jötnar halflings rarely breed true.”

 

Gerðr gave birth to a pink-skinned child with fine light hair. He was only a little bit disappointed that the child did not have his family’s horns.

 

Thor found their new hiding place within the Barrey woods. Instead of a hunting party, he brought a pair of goats heavy with milk.

 

********************************************************

 

**_Gerðr the Fenced-In part 2:_ **

Fall approached, and the weather near the little shack between three realms’ borders grew hot and cold at random, as the trees shed their summer greens for different colours. Thor visited whenever he was neither duty-bound nor searching for his Brother, to both play with the half-blood babe and attempt clumsy banters under the lash of Járnsaxa’s sharp tongue.

 

Upon one of these visits, he found Gerðr silent and sullen, as Járnsaxa helped him pack.

 

“The whelp turned out to be more Vanr than Jötunn after all. Didn’t even turn blue when we put him out in the cold. He will not survive the winter here, much less in frozen and impoverished Jötunheimr,” Járnsaxa stated matter-of-factly, then gleefully added, “Not to mention that many a Jötunn would gladly end this little abomination’s suffering by dashing his soft head upon a hard rock.”

 

“How could you speak so casually of treating a babe with such savagery!?” Thor was indignant.

 

“No more savage than the hands that slew Gerðr’s sibling and forced the child upon him! And how dare you accuse me of savagery against the very babe I’ve helped deliver?” the seiðmaðr hissed and bristled.

 

“Asgard is also closed to us. Should my glamour fail while I am within the Allfather’s borders, the Æsir may use me as an excuse to go to war with my Lord Gymir. And Lord Gymir would take to killing this too-Æsir child himself, should he lay eyes upon such visible shame to his house. Best he thinks me dead than defiled. I, I have no choice but to go back to Álfheimr,” Gerðr told the Thunderer.

 

“But you spent so much effort running away from Álfheimr! As a Prince of the realm, I could offer you protection in Asgard!” Thor dared not speak Freyr’s name, for it was not the realm alone that Gerðr fled from.

 

Gerðr’s voice was bitter and resigned, but his eyes upon the child were soft. “And what if the Lord of a powerful allied realm demands his half-tamed livestock back? Will a good Prince risk offending him for a single Jötunn?”

 

And Thor was silent and ashamed, for offering promises of something he could not give. He was now the sole heir of Asgard, and the welfare of his realm and people far outweighed that of one small frost giant’s.

 

For one moment, Thor thought Járnsaxa looked disappointed yet unsurprised. But that look quickly disappeared into a mocking sneer.

 

Gerðr’s face was one of self-depreciation. “Better this child be raised the damless bastard of a Vanr Lord, than the realm-less whelp of a drifting monster. Odinson, I’ve already decided before I fled Freyr’s halls. Should the child be born Jötunn, I would bring him back to my people and make up a lie. But should he carry more of his father’s blood… I will never have affections for a Vanr, but Freyr is not the sort to turn away a child so obviously his own.”

 

The babe blinked up at them, eyes shifting from red to blue and back again.

 

For all of Járnsaxa’s practicality, he did not suggest to Gerðr to leave the child to winter’s test and save himself the trouble. For he too had borne children of his own, each more monstrous and beautiful both.

 

********************************************************

 

**_Járnsaxa:_ **

“I must continue on my journey of self soon. I’ve dallied more than enough here,” said Járnsaxa one evening after dinner, Gerðr and his child gone.

 

“Aye. My Brother often used to embark on such private travels. Do all practitioner of magic do such?” Thor asked, not wishing to think upon why he felt disappointed at the upcoming partings.

 

“Will you finally stay the night, son of Odin?” Instead of answering, Járnsaxa posed a question of his own as he stood, dropped his green shawl, and bared his blue shoulders.

 

The sudden change of topic did not surprise Thor. Instead, he felt as if he had seen what was soon to come the first moment the Jötunn witch (who was so alike his Brother even then) slyly smirked at him.

 

“Gladly, if you would have me, sharp-tongued mage.” The Æsir god reached out and tentatively caressed the small Jötunn’s horns. Sharp and only slightly curved, they were nothing like Gerðr’s fine tight curls. If he closed his eyes and imagined the horns a few inches longer, and the raven locks a lot shorter and less wavy, he could have almost pictured his little Brother slowly disrobing before him. Would the trickster’s horns look exactly like the ones on his helm?

 

***

 

On the edge between Asgard, Álfheimr, and Jötunheimr, at the first fall of bright colourful leaves, Thor eagerly mapped out all the lines and ridges on one of his people’s oldest foes, and learned that frost giants were not made completely out of jagged ice and frozen stones, even if they did have the sharpest tongues.

 

Under the God of Lightening, the small giant strained and twisted, both burning fire and flowing liquid, hardened stone and velvet silk, as the two danced the oldest magic together. And if in his passions Thor breathed out another name a few times, the Jötunn simply held on even tighter, and hid his gasps and smirks against the cord of Thor’s neck and the iron of his shoulders.

 

Splayed out bonelessly on his fine feathered robes, Járnsaxa refused Thor’s apologies for his rude slipups, tapped the god affectionately on the nose, and asked for another round.

 

Thor woke to the lack of a comfortable presence besides him when the morning after next dawned. Járnsaxa was gone.

 

********************************************************

 

**_Magni:_ **

Princely duties kept Thor busy for almost a year. On the cusp of a new winter, said duties dwindled as the trees slowed their growth and prepared for sleep for yet another season. The promise of winter drew Thor’s thoughts ever sharply to his Brother, who still refused to show despite Bilskirnir’s ever open doors.

 

Wandering along the borders between worlds, Thor found himself again near Barrey. Unsure if out of nostalgia, or if some other unknown force had drawn him, Thor’s feet led him to the little shack in the woods. He was surprised most pleasantly to see its little yard cleaned, and cooking fires rising from the hearth.

 

It was not the Jötunn Brother he dreamt of often, but slender Járnsaxa clad in a flowing green cape was still a most welcomed sight.

 

Thor rushed to embrace his frost giant friend, only to have the seiðmaðr hold out a hand to stop him in his tracks.

 

“I am near the end of my journeys, and will go back to my usual toils once again, Odinson. But before we part for good, I have something for you,” the seiðmaðr said from under his hood.

 

Not sure what to say to such final words of parting, Thor followed after the Jötunn into the little shack.

 

The Jötunn witch reached into a padded wooden box, and took out a bundle with care. Turning, he handed it to Thor, who held it with speechless shock and wonder.

 

“Behold Magni, the monstrous get of Thor, Prince of Asgard, and a frost giant runt,” Járnsaxa announced.

 

Thor looked down at hints of his father and mother’s features, a tuft of curly coal black hair, filmed over eyes not yet open to the world, and light blue skin slowly turning pink in the warmth of his arms.

 

Járnsaxa chuckled at Thor’s face, “What do you think? Good enough to pass for an áss? I sure am not lugging it around after me. And to plagiarise a distant kin of mine, better he be raised the foster of a God of Thunder than a hated monster.”

 

“Foster? But every feature of his shows he is clearly of the line of Odin!”

 

“I will bet my very extensive magic tome collection, that Odin will not let you announce a half Jötunn bastard as the royal first-born. He will force you to pretend adoption, if he would let you keep the whelp at all,” the Jötunn whapped the god on his thick head.

 

***

 

Then feeling pleased that Thor accepted the child as eagerly as he expected, the frost giant mage put the babe to bed with a spell, and bid Thor join him in a shorter repeat performance of the two nights and a day during which Magni was conceived, but with goat intestine wrappers for Thor this time. He would not risk siring a fish or a spider or a ball of fire just for a short but pleasant farewell tumble. Magni got lucky in his inheritance only because the seiðmaðr had taken painstaking preparations, partly aided by long observations of Gerðr’s pregnancy.

 

***

 

“Will you not pause in your affairs if only temporarily, and come with me to Asgard? So that we may raise Magni together. None will dare harm you within the halls of Bilskirnir, where my authority is absolute.”

 

“To Asgard as what? A pair of new horns to grace your father’s halls? A curiosity and tamed beast? A kept thing living under your mercy, hidden within one of the five hundred and forty rooms in your halls? A soft creature such as Gerðr might willingly suffer such fates for a child, but I am made of more selfish stuff than that. And what would your dear baby Brother say, should he return to find you cavorting with a monster?”

 

“Ah, but I have asked him of the same, and he refused to come home.”

 

***

 

So the frost giant disappeared into the seams between worlds, and the Prince returned to Asgard. Just as predicted, Odin accepted the child, but only after Thor formally announcing that he found it on the side of a road, and was adopting it out of the grace of his heart. What was another lie, in the very house of lies?

 

Then the Avengers called. Loki was spotted waving mockingly at various surveillance cameras on earth, and more worryingly, in the close company of one Doctor Victor von Doom. Thor left Magni to the care of his mother and an army of maids and wet nurses, and headed promptly to Midgard with Mjölnir on his belt.

 

While he was away, the film over Magni’s eyes finally lifted. When they opened, his eyes were green and bright.

 

********************************************************

 

**_Brothers:_ **

The bright Vanr Lord rode to the spring hunt upon his golden boar, Gullinbursti, a toddler fair of hair and features slung snugly across his chest, introduced as Fjölnir heir of Freyr.

 

The god was still unwed, and tight-lipped about whom the lucky maiden was. But as the Vanir were wilder folks, and not completely the same as the Æsir (Were Freyr and Freyja not products of incestuous love, and the siblings had lain with each other besides?), few gave further thought, and many offered congratulations.

 

Thor kept his thoughts to himself, having learnt no small measures of self-restraint in the absence of his Brother and trials of fatherhood, and waved Magni’s wet nurse over to look after the babe.

 

Fjölnir promptly snatched away Magni’s toy hammer, while the latter grabbed his little guest’s hair by the fist-full, and both started wailing before they could be separated. Thor watched them, fair and dark, two tiny bodies tangled together in rough play, and remembered a sun-lit nursery from long ago, a golden haired boy peeking over a tiny crib, and accidentally tipping it over to rudely jolt his equally tiny baby Brother from his mid-afternoon nap.

 

**The End**

 

********************************************************

 

**_Epilogue:_ **

Seasons passed, and Fjölnir son of Freyr grew. His limbs stretched out, shoulders broadened, hair darkened from platinum fair to honeyed wheat, his face ever handsome. He ran with his father’s great boars and hunted in the deep Barrey woods and amongst the fertile rolling hills, and all who looked upon him praised him for bringing honour to his father’s house. Freyr doted upon his heir, pouring both a father and a mother’s love unto him. And Fjölnir was proud to be his father’s son, the son of a hero who slew evil giants and brought good tidings to the land. Although the father did not smile as readily as he used to when he was a younger man, the son’s easy laughter lit up the days more than enough for both of them.

 

All was well in Freyr’s house. All was well, until one day, led by a green spider while between the land of wakefulness and dreams, Fjölnir entered the single sealed and forbidden hall of his father’s house, came upon a thick iron door, and it swung open as if by magic to a richly furnished room with no windows.

 

The blue creature with a swollen belly, familiar curling horns decked with jewels (for the boy had seen the likes of them in his father’s storage room, great blue horns hidden behind a dustsheet, only these in front of him were much smaller and finer), and a familiar face (for he saw those brows and nose and cheeks every day in his own dressing mirror) gasped from its (his?/her?) perch on the fur-strewn bed, long golden chains extending from rune-laden leather collars around slender neck and ankles rattled in the night’s silence, while in the shadows, a spider smiled.

 

********************************************************

 

_Ok now stop reading before the whole experience is ruined more than it already was._

**_Extra scenes:_ **

“Excuse me good sir, err, lady, erm… Why are you wearing my Lord father’s shirt?” said Fjölnir.

 

“…” said Gerðr.

 

“…” said Freyr, coming out of the joined bathing chamber with naught but a towel on.

 

Meanwhile, hanging by a thread from the ceiling, Loki patted himself on the proverbial back. There was no way he was going to let the brat’s hypocrite of a father get away from spewing slanders against an absent Prince of Asgard and Jötunheimr during the annual spring hunts. And that little toy/Thor/Frigga/girlfriend-stealing half-breed was long overdue for some frost giant lineage related identity-angst and father-son issues of his own. Besides, as ever, misery doth love company.2 

 

********************************************************

 

**NOTES:**

 

1\. And so Freyr fell to his own sword at the hands of Surtr as Asgard crumbled to dust. Gerðr brother of Beli felt vindicated. But Gerðr dam of Fjölnir was not sure if he felt glad or saddened. But he laughed until tears welled up when Fjölnir brought back his father’s will and shattered sword. To Gerðr his wife, Freyr left half of his sprawling estate. From Freyr’s troves Gerðr took nothing save for the broken magic sword and a pair of great blue horns, and never set foot in Álfheimr again.

 

2\. While a brilliant prankster and inspired schemer, some of Loki’s schemes also tended to be half-baked due to the unique position he possessed in his pantheon3. Loki’s original intent was for Fjölnir to suffer from the knowledge that his blood was tinted with icy slush, as well as swallow the indescribable feeling of walking in on one’s parents. How was he to know that the boy was made of such delicate constitutions?4

 

Later while being a literal fly on the wall during one of the (New, New, New) Avengers’ Saturday evening drink and tells, he was intrigued to learn that for contemporary Midgardians, murder, kidnapping, illegal confinement, domestic violence, Stockholm syndrome, and marital rape actually apply to all people, be they wandering frost giants or shining gods, as his Brother’s newest batch of meddling mortal friends grew increasingly horrified at Thor’s troubled telling of the tale of Freyr and Gerðr. And why on earth didn’t Thor do something earlier? Why are giants not counted as people in the laws of Asgard? What did he mean he’s also fathered a child with one? Is he paying child support? Bring the boy to earth next time?

 

3\. Magni started questioning, loudly and firmly, the identities and fates of his birth parents and threatened to run away to earth after a half-crazed Fjölnir showed up at Bilskirnir’s door to seek console from his closest and earliest friend.5

 

4\. Having been mounted by a horse for the sake of Asgard only to be mocked, bringing Thor’s hammer and many other wondrous gifts from the dwarves only to have his lips sewn shut, losing the custody of all his children, and always, always overlooked by an all-wise father who was a liar, and overshadowed by a shining brother who wasn’t even his, Loki thought Freyr went easy on his frost giants. Giants had been killed for building walls and stealing hammers before. Gerðr was alive, well-fed, and physically well-cared for. Fjölnir was the honoured heir and beloved son. And both had their Vanr Lord’s complete attentions, while Loki was cursed to be content with scraps.6

 

5\. _**More Extra Scenes:**_

“WHY DID YOU TWO TELL ME I **WAS** **ADOPTED**????!!!! AND THAT MOM IS MY UNCLE!!!!!????” Magni wailed with histrionics and volume that his frost giant father/mother would have been proud of.

 

“Wait, when did you really figure out Járnsaxa was simply one of my many brilliant disguises?” Loki whipped his head around to glare at his Brother.

 

“Why Járnsaxa reminded me of you from the start, Brother. But I first started to truly suspect when I came to the shack unannounced, and overheard you singing one of mother’s lullabies to young Fjölnir here while you bathed him,” Thor blinked at his Brother. “But I dared not to confirm, for fear of offence had I been wrong, and scaring you away had I been right. And son, Loki IS your uncle.”

 

“I HATE YOU BOTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND YOU, GRANDPA!!!”

 

“Come Fjölnir, once I figure out how to sneak your mom and future baby brother out without tripping the prison runes, we are all moving to earth to join the X-Men. No good parents!” Magni grabbed his friend on his way out, slamming the door behind him.

 

Odin gave his sons a “told you two you couldn’t do much better than me” look, while Frigga face-palmed.

 

6\. Even Magni noticed that his dam and uncle was ever an unreliable narrator, and the man’s world view (so sharply intelligent, yet so utterly tunnel-visioned) made Magni swear that he himself (not Loki, not Thor, and especially not Odin) would take over the custody of all his future siblings as befit a most responsible older brother.


End file.
